Ten Things I Hate About You
by Solo Ensemble
Summary: Jason and Elizabeth have a fight and withdraw to their respective corners to come up with all the things they hate about each other. Liason fluff.


**10 Things I Hate About You**

"And we were fighting about that, and then I said that it wasn't just this one thing, I could make a whole list of all the things I hated about him, and he said, fine, and then he left, and then…I found some wine."

Emily smiled sympathetically at her sister-in-law as they sat cross-legged on the couch in Penthouse II. Her nephew Jake was fast asleep upstairs and thankfully Sonny and Carly weren't around to make the fight any worse, and she had been only too happy to come on over when her best friend called her up and said Jason was being an ass.

"Well, it's very good wine. 1964 was a good year."

"It was," Elizabeth agreed sourly. "1963 and 1965 were sewage."

"You sound like Grandfather," Emily laughed, taking a sip from her second glass. "Hey, you have any cinnamon sticks? This kind of wine would taste really good if we each put a cinnamon stick in it."

"Jason's allergic," Elizabeth grumbled, hoisting herself up off the couch. "He gets hives on his face and arms. But I think I hid some way in the back of the cabinet. Come on."

Emily loped along behind her, turning down the stereo volume on their way into the kitchen. "So…on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was this fight?"

"Eleven," she muttered, rummaging around in the cabinets.

Emily's brows jumped. "That bad? Oh, honey…"

"Well, it wouldn't have been, but he left at the end." Elizabeth swiped her bangs out of her face and smacked a palm on the counter. "No matter how badly we fight, he never leaves. Today, he just got up and left. What is that? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Maybe he just needs to cool off a bit," her friend suggested. "Maybe he didn't want to raise his voice with Jake sleeping upstairs. Or…maybe he realized what a jerk he was and now he's making a trip to the store to get you some flowers."

"Yeah, that'd be a first," Elizabeth snorted. "Do you know that in four years of marriage, Jason has never _once _gotten me flowers?"

Emily had to laugh at that. "Oh, come on, Elizabeth."

"I'm serious! He gave me a sprig of lilac once, but that was only because we were standing next to a whole bush of it in the park. No flowers – not on my birthday, not on Mother's Day, not on our anniversary…Not that he can even remember when our anniversary is. I have to write it on his calendar and program it into his phone every single year, and this year when I got mad at him for forgetting, _he _got mad at _me _for not putting it on his calendar or in his phone. What is that?"

"Typical guy behavior?" Emily guessed, cringing when Elizabeth shot her a glare. "No? Uh…grounds for castration?"

"Exactly," Elizabeth growled, shoving a canister of cinnamon sticks across the counter. "And believe me, I'd go for that in a heartbeat, but I still want a little girl."

"Sure, sure," her best friend agreed, following her out of the kitchen. "So…what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to sit right here on the couch until that idiot gets home," Elizabeth announced, flopping down on the maroon leather sofa. "And then I'm going to read him my list."

Emily slowly sat down next to her. "…What list?"

Elizabeth had produced a pad of paper and a fuzzy-tipped pen from one of the end tables. "The list of all the things I hate about him, of course. You wanna help?"

----------------------

_Some time later…_

"Oh, oh, and I hate how he gets into bed and puts his feet next to mine," Elizabeth said, quickly scribbling it down. An empty bottle of wine sat on the coffee table, and both girls were fully absorbed in their list-making task. "His toes are always ice cold, and he says that putting them by mine warms them up. What about _my _toes? My husband doesn't even care about my toes!"

"Awful," Emily agreed. "Ooh, what about…"

"I know," Elizabeth interrupted, shaking her pen when the pink ink started to give out. "I hate how he spends so much time with Sonny. I mean, I'm your wife, moron, but you spend two hours at his house watching the game every single day."

"But the game isn't on every single day," Emily pointed out.

"He still spends two hours there," Elizabeth bristled. "Oh! And I hate how he snores."

"He snores?"

"Like a buzzsaw," she confirmed. "And I hate how he always tries to kiss me after he smokes a cigar because he _knows _how much I hate it."

Emily was having trouble with this one, too. "Jason smokes cigars?"

"Occasionally," Elizabeth replied. "And I hate how he always loads the dishwasher wrong."

"He knows how to do the dishes?" She shook her head incredulously. "I know so little about my own brother."

"And I hate that he broke my glass unicorn."

Emily stifled a laugh. "You have a glass unicorn?"

"Had," Elizabeth emphasized. "And don't laugh. Lucky gave it to me on my birthday two years ago. Jason was tossing a football around inside and 'accidentally' broke it. Please, like I believe that. He's had it out for that thing ever since I got it."

"He just dislikes Lucky," her best friend replied simply. "That's all there is to it."

"And I hate how he only buttons _one _button on Jake's onesie," Elizabeth seethed, stabbing at the pad with her pen. "There are only two buttons – does it really take that much effort to button the second button? Plus, it places a _lot _of stress on that one button and stretches out the fabric and makes the whole thing look pthhhbth."

"You feel very strongly about onesies," Emily noted, reading the list over her shoulder. "Okay, so how many does that make?"

Elizabeth glanced at her messy numbering. "With that one…fifty-two."

Her sister-in-law tried to hide a smile and failed. "Got any more left in ya?"

"Did I already write how I hate that he leaves the toilet seat up?"

"Three times."

"Oh. Okay, then I got nothing."

"Great, we're finished," Emily cheered. "Now I have an idea about the list: let's burn it."

Elizabeth stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Burn it? Oh, no. No, no. Why would I burn it?"

"Because the whole point of writing the list was to get your feelings out, to vent," she pointed out. "You know, to get all those stupid things down on paper and then just get rid of them, because they're not important anyway because you and Jason love each other. So let's burn it."

"Oh, no," Elizabeth disagreed, folding the paper up and holding it away from her friend. "I'm not burning it. I'm going to read it to him as soon as he gets home. I'm going to let that idiot know exactly what I think."

"Talkin' about me?"

Both women turned at the sound of the door opening and found themselves staring at Jason. The patriarch of the Morgan family had apparently been out on a ride, and his hair was windblown and his cheeks were red from the cold.

"Emily. Get out."

"I was just leaving," she agreed, proving herself a woman of good sense as she hopped up off the couch. Elizabeth stood, too, and Emily threw her arms around her sister-in-law. "Take care, okay, honey? Call me in the morning."

"Emily."

"I'm going, I'm going," she huffed, making a grab for her purse. "Also…I'll need a ride home."

Jason rolled his eyes and held the door for her. "Ask Milo. He's in the hall."

"Night, big brother."

"Next time, don't drink so much." Jason shook his head and let the door shut behind her. He loved his sister, but he had to admit he could do without her when he argued with his wife. Emily always picked Elizabeth's side because she claimed that Jason had enough people in his corner.

And she had clearly picked Elizabeth's side tonight, if the empty bottle of wine and the hard look on Elizabeth's face were any indication. Jason sighed and unzipped his jacket, taking a few slow, measured steps toward his wife who did not look as if she'd forgiven him.

"I worked on that list of yours."

She arched a brow. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Jason rolled his shoulders, holding her gaze. "You said that you could make out a whole list of all the things you hated about me. I made one of what I hate about you, too."

Elizabeth held up a folded square of paper, every last inch of which appeared to be covered in her scrawling pink handwriting that was barely legible when she was sober and absolute gibberish when she wasn't. "I've got mine right here. Who goes first?"

A muscle in his jaw ticked. "I will. Here."

She blinked when he shoved a folded up napkin into her hand. It was folded up four times and bore the logo of Jake's on the back, so she knew he'd been out drinking a little as well. "Fine. Great. I'll just read it."

His eyes remained steely. "I think you should."

Elizabeth glared at him and unfolded the napkin, smoothing it against her thigh. He actually had the nerve to go out and make a list about her – when _he _was the one who had been such an ass. "All right, Jason, fine, let's see what you hate about me."

She glared at him once last time before inspecting the napkin that comprised his list, but was surprised to find only one line written there in his neat, block print writing.

_I hate that you're angry with me._

A slow smile made her lips twitch, and Elizabeth slowly looked up at her husband. "You sure there isn't anything else?"

He grinned his familiar boyish grin. "That's it."

She laughed despite herself and, tucking the napkin into her back pocket, threw her arms around her husband's neck. Jason held her close, his arms wrapped as tightly as always around her waist, and Elizabeth closed her eyes and just breathed him in.

They stood like that for a long moment before she finally pulled back and smoothed her hands down his chest. "Your list is so going on the fridge next to Jake's ultrasounds."

Jason grimaced at the thought, then remembered something. "Hey, what about your list?"

Elizabeth blinked. "My list?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "the one you made for what you hate about me. Where is it? Let's see it."

She glanced at the folded piece of paper. "Uh, you know, that's okay."

"No, really, let's see," Jason insisted, trying to make a grab for it. "I wanna see what you wrote."

Thinking quickly, Elizabeth switched the list to her other hand behind her back and, taking one quick step back, tossed it into the fire. Once she saw it catch and begin to burn away, she turned back around and gave her husband a beaming smile.

"It wasn't important, anyway."


End file.
